


From the Beginning / If You’ll Have Me

by IchiBri



Series: Sheith New Year 2019 [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Heart-to-Heart, Love Confessions, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s06e05 The Black Paladins, Pre-Kerberos Sheith, minor past Shiro/Adam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 13:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17326307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IchiBri/pseuds/IchiBri
Summary: Keith’s gaze flicked from the empty pilot chair to the sealed doors of the cockpit. He stared at the lines in the metal, resisting the urge to blink Shiro’s profile into clarity. When he hung his head to stare at his boots, his fingers grasped at the guard of his knee. He squeezed his eyes shut and spoke through the thick thorns digging into his throat. They choked out each word like a man’s dying breath.“I think I loved you from the start. The very beginning.”--In which Keith and Shiro sit down to talk about Keith's "I love you" from The Black Paladins ep





	From the Beginning / If You’ll Have Me

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt - The Past

The white hair was new, but as Keith sat beside Shiro—a calculated distance between them; with the low glow of the lights in the Black Lion’s cockpit casting a purple haze upon their armor—Keith knew it had always been Shiro. The time with the clone—his words that cut through Haggar’s control—was real. Not once did he consider the clone to be a fake, and even now, those memories lived on inside Shiro.

Everything he said to the clone, he said to Shiro. And now, they needed to talk through it. Because the tiptoeing around and awkward snippets of conversations couldn’t continue. Even if he needed to swallow his own feelings—feel the burn of the thorns rip through his throat and constrict each beat of his heart—then that was what he’d do.

Keith’s gaze flicked from the empty pilot chair to the sealed doors of the cockpit. He stared at the lines in the metal, resisting the urge to blink Shiro’s profile into clarity. When he hung his head to stare at his boots, his fingers grasped at the guard of his knee. He squeezed his eyes shut and spoke through the thick thorns digging into his throat. They choked out each word like a man’s dying breath.

“I think I loved you from the start. The very beginning.”

Keith’s lashes blinked, and through the haze of moisture budding in his eyes, he saw the gray uniform of the Galaxy Garrison and the two stripes of gold adorning each of Shiro’s shoulders. A fifteen-year-old on the fast track to criminal delinquency, Keith didn’t want to believe he had a way out. He ignored Shiro’s speech to the class, had even scuffed his sneakers against the pavement on the way to the simulator set up in the parking lot. He hung back hoping to blend into the ground.

But when Shiro called out to him—so casual and friendly with the challenge of his words—Keith rose to meet it. He hadn’t meant to set any class record, but with his hand on the joystick and a meteor field before him, he found a world he could excel in—a world he felt at home.

But the moment he heard the whispers of his teacher’s callous words, Keith was brought crashing back to Earth. The bitterness that masked the hurt of his heart clouded his mind until he slipped out of the pilot seat and jumped into Shiro’s car. He sped off before the consequences of his actions could catch up to him. But they did; and as he was ducked into the back of a squad car, he resigned himself to believing his teacher was right. He was a discipline case, a mere delinquent and nothing more.

Keith hadn’t expected anyone to come collect him from the juvenile detention center. But along came Shiro, and he couldn’t fathom why the guy whose car he stole would vouch for him.

“I just didn’t know the proper words to describe the feeling.”

Keith flexed his fingers, squeezing them into a tight fist. The burn on his knuckles when he punched Griffin in the jaw had felt so damn good in the heat of the moment. It stoked the fire in his blood like a gust of wind—sparking an inferno that had Keith seeing red—and if Iverson hadn’t pulled him off Griffin, there’s no doubt in his mind that he would’ve pummeled the kid unconscious.

It only dawned on Keith later as he sat waiting outside the disciplinary office that his temper had finally pushed away the one person who believed in him. But by now, he was used to being alone. He told himself it didn’t hurt, that the sting didn’t pierce through him like an arrow and leave him raw and bleeding out on the floor.

When the office door opened and Shiro walked out, Keith locked his limbs against the flinch. The tense silence as Griffin walked past into the office rang loud in Keith’s ears. His hands fisted atop his knees as Shiro stepped closer. Too afraid to hear the words come from Shiro, Keith uttered them first. For if they came from him, he was convinced it wouldn’t hurt.

But Shiro offered out his hand, and Keith, for the first time since his dad died, found someone he could rely on.

That was all it took for a troubled teen to turn his life around. And maybe at first, Keith idolized Shiro. He looked up to Shiro; he wanted to be like Shiro. But with every study session and hoverbike race across the desert, Keith realized that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t want to be Shiro. He just wanted to be with Shiro.

“But then I saw you with Adam, and I knew what I felt for you— It was more than a brother.”

The same tears—burning hot and stinging his eyes red—streamed down his face the day he stumbled upon Shiro pushed back into his apartment door, eyes heady as Adam leaned in with fervor on his lips. Keith couldn’t scramble backwards fast enough. He tripped over his own feet, his textbook and notebook flying across the hallway. His sneakers squeaked against the tile—their cry as shrill as the ache in his chest—and he dashed out of the officers’ barracks leaving a pencil and his broken heart shattered on the floor.

When the Kerberos mission showed the cracks in their seemingly perfect relationship, Keith felt the prick of hope worming its way through his ribs. But he squashed it beneath his boot, because he promised himself to never jeopardize Shiro’s happiness. And if that was with Adam, well, that was for them to decide. He would stand at Shiro’s side and support him through his dreams. When he returned a hero—a revolutionary space explorer—Keith would be there to welcome him home. And if Shiro came to him first, then he would take a chance at his own heart’s ambition and lay his feelings bare.

That was what he told himself as Shiro gave him a tour of the shuttle. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Shiro had the stars in his eyes as he nerded out over every inch of the spacecraft. But as awe-inspiring as the shuttle was, Keith found true beauty in the crinkle of Shiro’s eyes and the broad grin of his lips, in the animated voice that hitched with every new detail he thought to share.

He watched the shuttle’s launch—felt the heat of its combustion on the wind—and stared up at the sky long after its vapor trail faded into the clouds. With such pride exuding from his chest, his smile wobbled with glee and giddiness, and he swore to confess his feelings when Shiro returned.

Except Shiro never did.

“But then you disappeared. The Garrison said you died. And I… I…”

Keith sniffled and wiped at his nose. He rubbed his knuckle against his eye and hid his tears behind his hand. A sob crawled up his throat, but he pressed his lips tight, his teeth biting into them.

Keith had had enough of funerals. He was only a boy when he stood alone at his father’s grave, the casket barely lowered into the ground before the murmurs started through the crowd. They hadn’t the decency to let him mourn before child services took him away.

Shiro’s funeral was a masquerade for the Garrison. They saved face by offering placating pleasantries to the media. It wasn’t for Shiro’s sake nor for the family he didn’t have. Not the Garrison or Iverson or even Adam, not one of them stood up in Shiro’s defense. But after hearing _‘pilot error’_ uttered one too many times, Keith surged from his seat with a clenched fist and a bellow in his lungs.

Without Shiro, he had nothing more to lose. No mentor, no friend, no _home_.

“I thought I lost you.”

He might lose him again. Forget friendship, Shiro might walk away completely. He’ll turn his back and disappear before Keith could reach out a hand to stop him.

Keith sucked in a stuttered gasp of breath. It wasn’t rejection he feared. He could push his feelings back down to the depths of his heart from which they came. But if Shiro walked away… if he became nothing more than a stranger…

Firm fingers wrapped around Keith’s wrist, and when Keith lifted his head, he blinked through thick tears to see the sheen of moisture shining in Shiro’s eyes.

With his thumb pressing against Keith’s pulse, Shiro said, “You didn’t. I’m right here.” A quick tug pulled Keith closer, and Shiro released his wrist to clasp Keith around the shoulder.

Keith clung to Shiro’s armor like he’d be sucked into the void of space if a single finger let go. His head bowed to Shiro’s shoulder, and with a sob in his throat, he said, “I love you. I love you so much, and I couldn’t die without telling you.”

Shiro’s hand slid over Keith’s back to cup the nape of his neck. And with each soothing scratch through Keith’s hair, the quakes which shook his shoulders eased.

“Keith,” Shiro said, the name a whisper on his lips. He bowed forward, the softness of Keith’s hair against his cheek. “I remember everything. The clone’s memories, I have them. And through his eyes, I saw you in a different light.”

Keith sniffled, and slowly, he lifted his head. When he looked into Shiro’s eyes, he saw the rawness of a smitten man. He saw the same fears deep in the gray of his irises, but greater than that, greater than the nerves that twisted their stomachs into knots, he saw the endearment of a heart beating in tune with his.

Shiro’s touch trailed along Keith’s jaw. With such tenderness, Shiro traced the raised red edge of the scar he left upon Keith’s cheek. “I don’t know where this war may take us, but…” He smiled, his fingers cupping Keith’s jaw as his thumb stroked along his cheekbone. “If you’ll have me, I want to see it through with you. And long after it’s over, too.”

Through his sniffles and tears, Keith nodded. “Yeah,” he breathlessly said, a smile to his lips.

Shiro blinked through his own tears budding at the corners of his eyes, and a single drop broke free to roll down his cheek. Keith watched its path as it curved with the nostril and dipped between the line of Shiro’s lips. His eyes slowly trailed back up to Shiro’s, and at the same time, they leaned closer.

Hesitant and questioning, each pause gave the other opportunity to back out. But with tender gazes and the ghost of unrequited love in Keith’s heart, Keith pressed forward to taste the salt of the tear on Shiro’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> You can find me @ichibri on Twitter & Tumblr


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